Team9nine

Apparently not, this despite the fact that he obviously became one hell of a troller in those 6 years

Been a bad year for getting the boat out, but snuck in another bank trip to a favorite small lake yesterday. Saw a lot of beds, but nothing locked on them. Did catch a couple cruisers sight fishing, but the rest of the 21 landed were cast and grind

I did a more basic, albeit painful test. Floroclear 12# and 15# = lots of broken off fish Tatsu 8, 10, 12, and 15# = never broken off a fish I'd retest again, but I trashed all the remaining FloroClear I had, so I lost that option Seaguar (Tatsu, InvizX) and Toray...Very little interest in playing around with any more fluoro brands at this point in my fishing life because those two are so good

I’ve tested quite a few over the years and would agree with OE that Sensation is one that regularly performs well in the lower stretch category, usually near the top with the lines I’ve tested. As for nylon based lines stretching, if you have applied any amount of force at the hook/lure, then there has been some degree of line stretch involved in that overall equation.

Zman Finesse WormZ...

Cold (50s) breezy NE wind and rain fast approaching kept me from pullling the boat out yet again. Made a bank trip though to one of my favorite little lakes and made a pass around it, managing 30 before the rain sent me packing. No real biggies, but good enough for me. Here's a few...

^^ This ^^^ I took a single piece of 2x8 (or 2x10, forget which), cut to shape/size, then carpeted and bolted to the deck. Matched the rail height perfect, and simply hung the nose of the motor mount just over the edge. Minn Kota also.

All the early studies I’ve read 5-10 years post snakehead introduction on the Potomac has shown little if any noticeable difference in the bass population. Modeling did suggest a dip of 30-35% in bass populations if snakehead continued to expand, but I haven’t pulled the most recent studies to see if that ever transpired. Bottom line - the end result has been nowhere near the doom and gloom portrayed by major bass fishing organizations when they were first discovered.

Buddy and I hit the white bass run about perfect over the weekend. Managed around 150 in 2.5 hrs of fishing. Darn near every cast at times.

Don’t believe they’ve ever published the fact or amounts of a payout for the original MLF events. Don’t believe winners got quite that much either, but there is some payout at those events. Much more transparency with the newer BPT stuff.

Yep, at least the winners did. Not sure if there was much pay down the list.

Speaking of good trollers... ?

Yep, walleye stuff. Typically add half a crawler to the hook and it spins in the water. The name is reflective of what the bait supposedly does, similar to "death spiral" and others that are commonly stated, for example, a tube that spins/circles in the water as it falls when rigged right. The slow part I believe is tied to the speed of trolling, faster than a traditional live bait rig, but slower than a spinner/crawler combo.

Palomar and Palomar. And if you ever decide to use braid...Palomar. If you go heavier than 10 lb test, then use a Palomar. Use something other than a crank bait...Palomar

Flat tire first thing Saturday morning. Off to the shop for a new set. Sitting there waiting for the next two hours, but found this mother duck sitting on a large clutch of eggs on the other side of the glass that kept me entertained. Pretty well hidden already, but kept adding mulch piece by piece on top of her. Most of it fell off into a pile at her sides...maybe that was the plan all along.

Here's a pic for motivation caught on a 250 on the cast.

Yep ? You can almost consider them like lipless cranks (traps). The smaller the size, the shallower it will run, though being metal, they’ll all sink to the bottom if you let them. Can also troll them using the same principles. Go for it.

Regular PP braid and either Seaguar (Tatsu, InvizX) or Toray Super Finesse FC leaders.

I've had no problems using FG on 5# and 6# FC line, but I'm also only using 3, 5 and 8# braid, so that might make a difference. Always use 12/24 wraps regardless.

Been a horrible spring around these parts. Wet and windy - lots of flooding and cool weather, along with muddy water. Haven't been able to get the boat out much at all, but have snuck in a few bank trips the past week. Managed around 60 so far - nothing too big though. Even seeing reports of some males beginning to nest, though I haven't seen it yet on my waters. Here's a couple from this evening after the rain passed. Air temps had cooled down to 47 degrees. Indiana "rock hopping" - One rod, one reel, one bait

Your question/scenario isn’t reality where I live. Just using actual published statistics from DNR surveys done right here on my local reservoir. Surveyed and creel checked anglers for 6 months, both boat and bank anglers. C&R guys caught and released over 9,000 bass. Meat eaters harvested 187. That means unless you’re mortality rate, both immediate and delayed, isn’t under 2%, the C&R bass guys, including tournies, are killing more bass on my home lake than the guys who catch and keep. You’re numbers up there might be different.

The 25 boat tournaments kill more, no doubt ? Numerous surveys in our area show almost no harvest of bass, with upwards of 96% C&R now days. The 25 boat tournaments are there on the lake every weekend and often a day or two through the week. No doubt that accumulated pressure is killing more fish around here than the few recreational guys who accidentally catch one or two and keep them. They even ran a tag reward program here to figure out how many people were catching and keeping bass. End result, big failure - they hardly awarded any prizes because only a couple people caught tagged bass and of those, just one or two actually kept the fish.

You almost sound a little afraid ‘Growing the sport’ doesn’t necessarily mean creating more anglers, but look toward the existing college and high school ranks to see what develops and whether this new format will be the deal going forward or not. Political correctness will have little to do with changing the resource - science will.

I’m betting you’re in the minority. Jigs without trailers talk is bass fishing blasphemy

Got several packs still left in both 5.5” and 7”, the larger being my favorite night time worm. The first tournament I ever won, a club event back in 1983 or thereabouts was on a Gatortail worm ? They had some interesting color combinations back in the day, some that achieved near cult-like status regionally.